It’s been over a decade since Athens’ Hellenikon airport closed down after around 60 years of duty as the only airport serving the Greek capital.

In 2001, just three years before Athens hosted the Olympic Games, Hellenikon was abandoned in favour of the glitzy new Eleftherios Venizelos airport, constructed to the east of the city.

What has happened to Hellenikon since then?

Well, the glory days of the airport are long gone.

Nothing has been done with the property aside from using part of the land to construct a few secondary sports facilities for use during the 2004 Olympics. In turn, these too now stand abandoned.

The former airport is now surrounded by a wire fence and weeds have taken over wherever they can. One terminal was burnt out by a fire and now sits in ruins – nobody cleaned it up after the incident.

Despite a private security service operating in the area, the building shows evidence of trespassing and looting. Boxes filled with anything from travel tags to piles of boarding passes and other documents are strewn on the floor amidst other debris and garbage.

The sad spectacle continues, following me with every step as I make my way through the deserted complex.

I see ghostly halls, smashed windows, broken doors. Stray dogs bark at me, reminding me that this is their territory. It’s hard to imagine how the international airport of a European capital ended up in this state.

But everything may change soon. A private development group wants to turn the old airport into a seaside resort and build a huge park, hotels, and residential buildings. But the project has already run into opposition from those angered about the land’s privatisation. The left-wing political party Syriza wants to see the site turned into a massive free public park instead.

Controversy over the future of the site seems strange in view that no one seemed to care that it stood abandoned for so long.

Meanwhile, as the discussion continues, Hellenikon still stands a sad derelict shell on the outskirts of Athens. Visiting it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Both as a photographer and a resident of this city, I have always wanted to explore the ghost buildings that stand semi-ruined on a central avenue of Athens, squeezed between the police headquarters and the Supreme Court, just a couple miles from the Greek parliament.

These blocks of flats, built back in the 1930s to house Greek refugees from Asia Minor, have not been taken care of for decades. They have been totally left to their fate.

The eight blocks of 228 flats, each about 160 sq feet (15 sq meters), catch your eye as you drive down Alexandras Avenue. While it’s quite simple to explain to someone what these rundown and graffiti-covered buildings are now, explaining how this place reached this point is more difficult.

The story starts when the children of the refugees began moving out some years ago, leaving behind their elderly parents who later passed away or abandoned their properties.

In 2001, the state bought almost all the apartments in the complex, and plans were laid to demolish the buildings and make use of the area differently, but these ideas were opposed by the residents. Finally, in 2008, Greece declared the buildings a heritage site worthy of protection, and all action froze.

Fish farming was a business that a few decades ago was completely alien in Greece, where eating fish was strictly related to the local fisherman, the weather conditions and the phase of the moon.

These days, regardless of the moon and the weather, we can all buy fresh fish at extremely low prices, every day. And from my experience of the industry during the days I photographed its fish farms and hatcheries, I realized there is more to the process than I thought – it’s a production line that resembles the circle of life itself.

The first step in the journey is at the hatchery. There you’ll find the broodstock, a group of fish held in the facility for breeding purposes. Once the eggs are chosen, they’re transferred to different tanks where they start growing up. At the same time, ichthyologists, the scientists who study fish, carry out regular checks on the newborns to make sure they’re healthy.

What do they eat? Well, they don’t consume food the way we think. A team at the hatchery is responsible for the daily production of plankton – a microscopic organism fish feed on – from scratch. Just next to the tanks where the fish live, an entire business devoted to taking care of the food has been set up, made up of colorful big plastic “tubes” as well as huge cans with different types of plankton – phytoplankton and zooplankton.

As the fish grow up, they’re transferred in groups according to their age to other tanks until the day they leave the hatchery for the fish farm in the open sea, making room for the younger ones at the facility.

This is where the scenery changes completely. The fish swim in floating round cages, the big ones capable of holding about 200 tonnes. They stay there for a few months until they reach the proper weight and size demanded by the market. As soon as they’re collected from there, they’re placed in thermal-insulated boxes, ready to fill market stalls around the world.

There, the circle of life ends and a new one begins. Some may say that this is unnatural, violent and forced or perhaps even worse, completely related to making a profit. I would tend to agree. But, we can only look forward, without dismissing new ideas and innovations, and just make sure that we keep track of them and be ready to step in before they irreversibly hurt the magic circle of life.

ATHENS, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Three senior lawmakers from
Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn were freed on Wednesday pending
trial on criminal charges, an unexpected setback to the
government’s efforts to clamp down on a party it has labelled a
neo-Nazi criminal gang.

The decision to free the men after an 18-hour court session
raises questions about the solidity of the state’s case against
Golden Dawn after one of its sympathisers stabbed to death an
anti-fascism rapper.

Party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris and fellow lawmakers Ilias
Panagiotaros and Nikos Michos stormed out of the court to cheers
of “bravo” from supporters. They kicked and shoved journalists
out of the way before hailing a taxi.

“We will not back down!” Michos shouted. “You can only stop
us with bullets. Even from the grave, we will rise up – know
this well!”

The unfolding saga has riveted a country where a crackdown
on elected politicians has not been seen since a military coup
nearly five decades ago.

Golden Dawn rose from being a fringe party to win 18 seats
in parliament in last year’s election. It has drawn on anger
over the debt crisis, budget cuts, high unemployment and
corruption to become what opinion polls indicate is Greece’s
third most popular party, but has lost about a third of its
support since the killing.

The images of the men walking freely were in stark contrast
to footage of the party’s leaders handcuffed and hustled to
police headquarters at the weekend.

“The political world is shocked,” said Asimina Ksirotiri, a
lawmaker from the Democratic Left party said in parliament.

In a letter by Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos
written from his police cell and published on the party’s
website on Wednesday, he said the authorities would not succeed
in their effort to undermine his party.

“The truth will ultimately shine, their plans will not pass.
However this dark story ends, it is certain that we Golden
Dawners made history and no one can take this away from us,” he
said.

Mihaloliakos later arrived at court flanked by hooded
anti-terrorism policemen with machineguns.

“CRUSHING EXTREMISM”

Hundreds of flag-waving supporters were outside the court
chanting the party’s “Blood! Honour! Golden Dawn!” slogan as
scores of police in riot gear stood guard. “Even in death, we
will stand by you, leader!” a man shouted.

Kasidiaris was released on bail of 50,000 euros ($67,600).
He, Michos and Ilias Panagiotaros were ordered not to leave
Greece. A fourth Golden Dawn legislator, Yannis Lagos, was
ordered to be kept in detention. All four denied the charges.

The four lawmakers were arrested on Saturday alongside
Mihaloliakos and two dozen party members.

They have been charged on what prosecutors say is evidence
linking the party with a series of attacks, including the
stabbing of rapper Pavlos Fissas on Sept. 17 and the killing of
an immigrant earlier this year. A trial date has not been set.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s government has vowed to
wipe out a party of “Nazi descendents”. It has shied away from
trying to ban the party outright but has ordered investigations
into it and plans to introduce laws against hate speech and
deprive the party of state funding.

Samaras has said the government was “crushing extremism” and
called Golden Dawn a “fascist, neo-fascist, neo-Nazi party whose
leader is currently in jail.”

Responding to the charges against him behind closed doors,
Kasidiaris said he was a victim of political persecution and
denied before the magistrate that the party had
paramilitary-like “storm troops” trained by him, a court
official said.

The party has been linked by human rights’ groups to attacks
on dark-skinned immigrants by gangs of Golden Dawn supporters
dressed in black and wielding baseball bats.

Nazi memorabilia, including flags, helmets with swastikas
and portraits of Adolph Hitler, have been found in the homes of
arrested members, police said. The party rejects the neo-Nazi
label.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Three senior lawmakers from Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn were freed on Wednesday pending trial on criminal charges, an unexpected setback to the government’s efforts to clamp down on a party it has labeled a neo-Nazi criminal gang.

The decision to free the men after a marathon, 18-hour court session raises questions about how strong the state’s case against Golden Dawn is after one of its sympathizers stabbed an anti-fascism rapper to death last month.

Party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris and fellow lawmakers Ilias Panagiotaros and Nikos Michos stormed out of the court to cheers of “bravo” from supporters. They shoved journalists out of the way before hailing a taxi.

“We will not back down!” Michos shouted. “You can only stop us with bullets. Even from the grave, we will rise up – know this well!”

A fourth Golden Dawn legislator, Yannis Lagos, was ordered to be kept in detention. All four denied charges against them.

Kasidiaris was released on bail of 50,000 euros ($67,600). He, Michos and Ilias Panagiotaros were ordered not to leave Greece.

“Golden Dawn, now stronger and more determined than ever, will continue its legal political struggle to free our land and people from the international loan sharks and domestic servants of foreigners,” the party said on its website.

“Golden Dawn will not die – Greece will be victorious!”

The four lawmakers were arrested on Saturday alongside party leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos, who was due to appear before the judge later on Wednesday.

They have been charged on what prosecutors say is evidence linking the party with a series of attacks, including the stabbing of rapper Pavlos Fissas on September 17 and the killing of an immigrant earlier this year. A trial date has not been set.

“POLITICAL PERSECUTION”

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s government has vowed to wipe out a party of “Nazi descendents”. It has shied away from trying to ban the party outright but has ordered probes into them and plans to introduce laws against hate speech and deprive it of state funding to try to weaken the party.

The move to crack down on an elected political party – the first time since a military coup in Greece in 1967 – has shocked Greeks, and the three senior lawmakers’ release comes as a surprise boost to a party that had been pushed on the defensive since the rapper’s killing.

“The judicial investigation is continuing, the evidence is there, there are charges for criminal acts and this should not be forgotten,” Interior Minister Yannis Michelakis told Greek TV following Wednesday’s decision.

Responding to the charges against him behind closed doors, Kasidiaris denied before the magistrate that the party had paramilitary-like “storm troops” trained by him, a court official said on condition of anonymity.

He said he was a victim of political persecution.

Golden Dawn has drawn on anger over the country’s debt crisis, financial cutbacks, high unemployment and corruption to become what opinion polls indicate is Greece’s third most popular party.

It has been linked to attacks on dark-skinned immigrants by gangs of Golden Dawn supporters dressed in black and wielding baseball bats. Its appeal had appeared immune to accusations of barbarity until the killing of Fissas prompted outrage and protests.

Nazi memorabilia, including flags, helmets with swastikas and portraits of Adolph Hitler, have been found in the homes of arrested members but the party rejects the neo-Nazi label.

“The social and political front against Nazism and their proponents is a given and it is united,” the government’s spokesman, Simos Kedikoglou, said in a statement. ($1 = 0.7393 euros)

In Greece, with its hundreds of islands, one of the longest coastlines in the world and a great climate, people are lucky enough to enjoy the beach for nearly half the year. Swimming in the sea is a way of life for many Greeks and a habit they’ve grown used to from their earliest years. With tourism being the country’s biggest industry, almost all visitors plan at least one “touch” with the sea during their holiday.

But for some, things are not so simple. Those with kinetic disabilities have always had to ask for help to enjoy the simple pleasure of swimming in the sea as wheelchairs cannot be driven on the sand or over pebbles. Unfortunately, this isn’t unusual in a country where access facilities for the disabled are in general very poor, even at the most basic level. A lack of infrastructure by the state and hostile behavior by many locals is a cocktail poisoning the daily life of those who depend on wheelchairs to get around.

In such a difficult environment, a team of university students and professors developed a solar-powered device which enables autonomous access to the beach for people with kinetic disabilities: the “Seatrac”, an innovative project covered by European and U.S. patents but faced with Greek reality.

“I feel like I built a penthouse apartment without a building underneath it,” says engineer Ignatios Fotiou, one of the inventors. The device, which has been sold to municipalities and placed on a few beaches around the country, has been very much welcomed by its users. Those who used it last year waited eagerly for the summer season to begin again. Many even arranged their summer holidays and rented homes near beaches where the device has been placed.

“It makes you feel free and able to do things which you could not imagine you could do on your own” says 52-year old Lefteris Theofilou, a paraplegic man who has been stuck in a wheelchair since 1992.

Still, no matter how modern and innovative a device is, it is not enough to overcome the “disabilities” – not of the people but of Greek reality. In Alepochori, a coastal town a few miles from Athens, parents let their children use the machine as a diving board and vandalism is not a rare phenomenon. While the municipalities bought the devices, locals say they did nothing in terms of developing a supportive infrastructure and furthermore they are not able to solve a problem when it comes up.

At a busy beach in Alepochori, a small ramp which was needed to be built to allow access from the street to the device became a huge issue and was never built by the municipality, but by a local man instead. A balustrade to support the disabled on the way to the beach has been a very expensive and complicated construction for the local municipality to overcome. “The support by the local authorities simply does not exist” says Minas Georgakis, whose wife Matoula suffers from multiple sclerosis and has been using a wheelchair for the last six years. Good idea, nice beaches, great weather but the lack of respect and the way the state treats its citizens makes you think that there is a long way ahead to have them all working in harmony.

ALEPOCHORI, Greece (Reuters) – Paralyzed from the waist down, Lefteris Theofilou has spent nearly half his life bound to a wheelchair and recalls as if it were a dream the first time a solar-powered chair enabled him to swim on his own in the Greek sea.

“It was unreal,” Theofilou, 52, a burly mechanic with graying hair, said as he lifted himself off his wheelchair one warm summer evening, sat on the chair and with the push of a button rode, unassisted, 20 m (yards) to the shore and into the water.

“It makes you feel free and able to do things you could not imagine you could do on your own,” he said.

Founded by a team of Greek scientists in 2008 and covered by European and U.S. patent laws, the Seatrac device operates on a fixed-track mechanism which allows up to 30 wheelchairs to be moved in and out of the water a day – all powered by solar energy.

In a country with one of the world’s longest coastlines and thousands of islands, it has come as a welcome relief for many Greeks, boosting demand each year. Currently, 11 devices operate in Greece and there are plans to expand the network.

But despite Seatrac’s growing appeal – it has already been exported to Cyprus and the team are in talks with architects in Croatia, France, the United Arab Emirates and Israel – it faces hurdles in Greece, where facilities for the disabled are poor.

In the capital Athens, bumpy pavements and potholed roads make moving around difficult. Wheelchair ramps had to be installed during a July visit by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.

Seatrac’s founders have taken advantage of Greece’s climate – the country is drenched in sun almost year-round – meaning that the devices can be set up easily on beaches without an electric line to hand and taken down at the end of the season, all without damaging the environment.

The team hope the device could boost tourism, the Mediterranean country’s biggest industry, but lament a lack of support by the local authorities which bought the device for 30,000 euros ($40,000) each and are responsible for maintenance after the first year.

Engineer Ignatios Fotiou, one of the inventors, likened the lack of support to “building a penthouse apartment without a building underneath it”.

At a busy beach in the coastal town of Alepochori near Athens, vandalism and theft of the solar panel are common. If something breaks, locals say it could take days for the municipality to fix it, sometimes delayed by striking workers.

Often, parents watch as their teenage children use the machine as a diving board.

“These guys have created an incredible thing and we stumble across problems from the state,” Theofilou said. “This is Third-World sloppiness.”

Minas Georgakis, whose wife Matoula Kastrioti, 46, suffers from multiple sclerosis and is in a wheelchair, said he had to take matters into his own hands because help from the local administration “simply does not exist”.

With wooden planks, he built an additional ramp to allow access to the Seatrac as wheelchairs could not be driven over sand. Even so, the path leading to the device is often blocked by parked motorcycles and uncollected garbage.

“I feel bitter,” Theofilou said of the lack of support to nods of agreement by Kastrioti who waited for her turn to board.

“We have thousands of beaches, the most beautiful in the world, and to still not be able to swim in them?” he asked as he emerged from the crystal blue waters.

Some say that to come in contact with “God” is a spiritual matter that has nothing to do with the particular spot or place where such contact takes place. Well, if it were that simple then there would be no need to build churches or mosques.

In the Greek capital Athens, where almost half the country’s 11 million people live, there is a 500,000-strong Muslim community, mostly immigrants from Asia, Africa and eastern Europe. Many of those are faithful and want to express their faith by praying in an appropriate place. Well, there is no such place – there isn’t a single “official” mosque in the wider area of the Greek capital.

Instead, they have to rent flats, basements, old garages and all kinds of warehouses and transform them into makeshift mosques to cover their need for a place to hold religious ceremonies. There are lots of these types of “mosques” around town but they’re not easy to spot and whenever I arrived at one of those addresses I had to double-check it was correct as there was no way to identify these flats or warehouses from the outside. I could not say that they’re miserable places but I could better describe them as hidden places, places that do not want to get noticed. During most of my visits people have been very welcoming and very keen to express their concerns about the lack of a recognizable place of worship as well as their fears about the threats they get from some locals.

“Soon there won’t be a single Muslim in Athens,” joked Egyptian Rabab Hasan when I asked her to comment on the lack of a mosque in Athens, obviously pointing to the rise of extreme-right ideas, mostly expressed by the Golden Dawn party, which won 18 seats in the 300-seat Greek parliament in the second of two thrilling elections last year.

The Greek government recently cleared the funds needed to build a mosque in Athens, even though it will not have a minaret. They have also finally found the place to erect it – in an old naval base, next to a church. But the story of the construction of a mosque in Athens dates back decades and is full of postponements and many changes of location.

Greece is a country where the vast majority of people are Orthodox Christian and a country that has lived under Turkish Ottoman rule for approximately four centuries. Today it’s a European Union country bordering the “successor” of the Ottoman empire, Turkey. But Turkey is still considered by many Greeks as its major arch-rival in the region. For many locals, Muslims represent a Turkish presence in Greece so it’s not an easy reality for them to accept that a mosque will be built in the capital. The financial crisis, when human relations become more polarized, has only made things worse.

“Do you think that one mosque which can host about 400 people will be enough to serve the thousands of Muslims living in Athens? Of course not. But it would be a strong message to the rest of the world,” says President of the Pakistani community in Athens, Javed Aslam, during a chat I had with him.

Places of worship around the world are part of the local culture and an indication of the degree to which society allows its members to express their religious beliefs equally. So, let’s all wait to see what is going to happen this time and if the mosque saga is coming to an end.

I’ve been working in the media industry since 1986 and I can’t recall the last time Cyprus, the small divided Mediterranean island, attracted so much attention since the 1974 invasion by Turkey, which stills keep the island and its residents separated.

A decision by the European Union for a “haircut” on deposits in all Cypriot banks made the country one of the top stories in the region and across the world. Various scenarios for Cyprus’s financial meltdown appeared everywhere.

After the vote by the Cypriot parliament, who delivered a loud ‘No’ to the proposal to seize depositors’ money, and the government’s decision to close banks all over the island to avoid a bank run, the idea of a violent uprising started gaining traction. The capital Nicosia, with its population of just 300,000 people, saw journalists, TV crews, photographers and famous analysts drinking coffee on the pedestrian Ledras street in the old part of town.

The tiny Eleftherias square at the end of that street was occupied by TV crews who were preparing for the big day – the day the banks would reopen. “There will be blood”, the title of a film starring Daniel Day Lewis, resonated in my mind.

As a Greek photographer who has been through all the nasty riots over the last two years since the crisis broke out in Greece, I could not see any signs of the forecasted Cypriot version. Many Cypriots consider themselves Greeks. They share the same National Anthem, they are Orthodox and of course they speak Greek.

So after 10 days and a few sporadic anti-bailout peaceful rallies, the banks reopened at 12:00 on Thursday, March 28, 2013. It took just a few hours for the rest of the world to realize that there would be no blood at all. After a couple of hours the small, calm lines outside the branches disappeared, just like they were never there at all.

There was no rioting, no invasions of banks and not even one went up in flames! And that was it!

The next day most journalists started packing up their belongings and arranging their flights home.

I’m writing these lines on board the plane back to Athens. The sunny weekend on Ledras street was just what some might call “boring”, with Cypriots and tourists flocking the cafes and the restaurants of the old town. The street remains untouched, without iron fences outside its banks and its shops, and with not even a single burnt shop.

I’m still trying to figure out how it’s possible to consider yourself a Greek without Greek behavior. The media left town, depositors lost a lot of money and Cypriots did not destroy their capital – weird story.

Mata Nikolarou, a jewellery shop owner in Athens, says she is not surprised that thousands of businesses in the capital have had to shut down.

“It was about time to happen. The market needed a clear off. Everyone in Greece had become a merchant, either by taking over their father’s shop or by taking out a cheap loan from the bank,” she said, explaining that most merchants had appeared out of the blue.

Almost a third of businesses and shops around the Greek capital have shut down over the last two years, as Greece’s crisis broke out and it agreed on a huge bailout package funded by the IMF and the European Union.

Mata’s little shop has been operating since 1998 but now stands alone between closed shops with rental signs on their windows. “When you do not respect your customers and your only aim is to make more money quickly by deceiving those who support you, then you will not survive” she told me. “I believe only the ones who really respect their jobs will stay open.”

Greece is now in its fifth year of recession, and the worsening situation has forced tens of thousands of small businesses to close. This adds more and more jobless people to one of the biggest unemployment rates in the European Union, at about 24 percent this year.

What is obvious is the Greek reality that over the last few decades the country’s economy was based on consuming, and that is why more and more Greeks over the years would open shops in order to make a living. When the repeated austerity measures led to severe cuts to wages and spending, the first sector to be hit was trade, especially the thousands of small shops which made up a big part of the economy. Anti-austerity protests in the city center, which have sometimes turned violent, also drove Athenians away.

“I have no idea what a loan is,” said Yorgos Litsikas, a 72-year-old leather supplier who runs a small business which was first opened by his grandfather back in 1870. “I’ve had the same clients for years and I get recommendations for any new ones so that keeps the work flowing without any unpleasant surprises”.

Well, I’m among those who believe that the crisis can only make us better. When something bad happens we must think that is not one man’s fault. So, Greeks must first find where they’ve made mistakes, get back on track and then find the right leadership to drive the country out of the crisis.